After Columbia, it is now Harvard, Yale, MIT: How top US colleges are unable to contain Gaza protests

Officials in elite US colleges such as Columbia, Yale, Harvard, MIT are scrambling to tamp down the latest round of protests which kicked off Wednesday against the Israel-Gaza war. Students have been arrested and in-person classes have been suspended as the showdown between authorities and protesters continues

Amid the arrests, Columbia teachers, students and alumni have expressed concern about authorities restricting free speech. AP

College students in elite US colleges continue to protest Israel’s war on Gaza.

From Columbia and Yale to Berkley and MIT, officials are scrambling to tamp down on the latest round of protests which kicked off Wednesday.

That came as students from groups such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace filled up Columbia’s South Lawn with green, blue and yellow tents.

This, as Columbia president Nemat Shafik prepared to testify before Congress – at a hearing in which she vowed to punish illegal demonstrations.

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Let’s take a look at how the institutes are trying and failing to contain the protests.

Columbia

According to The New York Times, Dr Shafik, a day after addressing lawmakers last week, invited the New York Police to clear the campus.

Some of the arrested later told the newspaper their hands were tied and they were loaded onto buses.

Meanwhile, Columbia teachers, students and alumni expressed concern about authorities clamping down on free speech.

On Monday, Dr Shafik ordered classes to be shifted online “to de-escalate the rancor.”

The university said courses at the Morningside campus will offer virtual options for students when possible, citing safety as their top priority.

But things don’t seem to be improving.

Tensions remained high at Columbia, where the campus gates were locked to anyone without a school ID and where protests broke out both on campus and outside.

US Representative Kathy Manning, a Democrat from North Carolina who was visiting Columbia with three other Jewish members of Congress, told reporters after meeting with students from the Jewish Law Students Association that there was “an enormous encampment of people” who had taken up about a third of the green.

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“We saw signs indicating that Israel should be destroyed,” she said after leaving the Morningside Heights campus.

New York Police officers arrest a protester who participated in an encampment on the Columbia University campus. AP

A woman inside the campus gates led about two dozen protesters on the street outside in a chant of, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” — a charged phrase that can mean vastly different things to different groups. A small group of pro-Israel counter demonstrators protested nearby.

Shafik said in a message to the school community Monday that she was “deeply saddened” by what was happening on campus.

“To deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps, I am announcing that all classes will be held virtually on Monday,” Shafik wrote.

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She added that students who don’t live on campus should stay away.

BBC quoted Shafik as saying that unrest at Columbia was being “exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas.”

On Sunday, Elie Buechler, a rabbi for the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to nearly 300 Jewish students recommending they go home until it’s safer for them on campus.

The latest developments came ahead of the Monday evening start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

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Nicholas Baum, a 19-year-old Jewish freshman who lives in a Jewish theological seminary building two blocks from Columbia’s campus, said protesters over the weekend were “calling for Hamas to blow away Tel Aviv and Israel.” He said some of the protesters shouting antisemitic slurs were not students.

“Jews are scared at Columbia. It’s as simple as that,” he said. “There’s been so much vilification of Zionism, and it has spilled over into the vilification of Judaism.”

But BBC quoted Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine as saying in a statement that they “firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry.”

The group slammed “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”

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Yale

The New York Times reported that protesters were arrested, zip tied and put on campus shuttles for trespassing.

Police officers arrested about 45 protesters and charged them with misdemeanour trespassing, said Officer Christian Bruckhart, a New Haven police spokesperson.

All were being released on promises to appear in court later, he said.

Protesters set up tents on Beinecke Plaza in New Haven, Connecticut on Friday and demonstrated over the weekend, calling on Yale to end any investments in defence companies that do business with Israel.

Chants of “we demand that Yale divests!” and “free Palestine!” were heard.

Students at Yale have demanded divestment in any defence companies that do business with Israel. AP

In a statement to the campus community on Sunday, Yale president Peter Salovey said university officials had spoken to the student protesters multiple times about the school’s policies and guidelines, including those regarding speech and allowing access to campus spaces.

School officials said they gave protesters until the end of the weekend to leave Beinecke Plaza.

Salovey told The New York Times that the university was concerned about reports “that the campus environment had become increasingly difficult.”

Officials said they made the decision on arrests keeping “the safety and security of the entire Yale community in mind and to allow access to university facilities by all members of our community.”

Officials said they again warned protesters Monday morning and told them that they could face arrest and discipline, including suspension, before police moved in.

A large group of demonstrators regathered after Monday’s arrests at Yale and blocked a street near campus, Bruckhart said.

There were no reports of any violence or injuries.

“It’s pretty appalling that the reaction to students exercising their freedom of speech and engaging in peaceful protest on campus grounds — which is supposed to be our community, our campus — the way that Yale responds is by sending in the cops and having 50 students arrested,” Chisato Kimura, a law student at Yale told the newspaper.

Harvard

Time Magazine quoted the Harvard Crimson as saying that the university had shuttered its yard ahead of expected pro-Palestinian protests.

A sign, which said Harvard Yard was closed to the public Monday, noted that structures, including tents and tables, were only allowed into the yard with prior permission.

“Students violating these policies are subject to disciplinary action,” the sign said.

Security guards were checking people for school IDs.

The same day, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee said the university’s administration suspended their group. In the suspension notice provided by the student organisation, the university wrote that the group’s 19 April demonstration had violated school policy, and that the organisation failed to attend required trainings after they were previously put on probation.

The Palestine Solidary Committee said in a statement that they were suspended over technicalities and that the university hadn’t provided written clarification on the university’s policies when asked.

Harvard on Monday shut its yard ahead of expected pro-Palestinian protests. AP

“Harvard has shown us time and again that Palestine remains the exception to free speech,” the group wrote in a statement.

The New York Times quoted the National Students for Justice in Palestine as saying Harvard’s move “clearly intended to prevent students from replicating the solidarity encampments” across the nation.

Harvard, however, said it is “committed to applying all policies in a content-neutral manner.”

MIT, Berkley, New York University

Encampments have also emerged at other elite colleges – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California at Berkeley, and New York University.

Prahlad Iyengar, an MIT graduate student studying electrical engineering, was among about two dozen students who set up a tent encampment on the school’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus Sunday evening.

They are calling for a cease-fire and are protesting what they describe as MIT’s “complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” he said.

“MIT has not even called for a cease-fire, and that’s a demand we have for sure,” Iyengar said.

As per the BBC, protesters put up tents across from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Demonstrators at the college called on authorities to disclose and divest its “finances and endowments from weapons manufacturers and companies with an interest in the Israeli occupation”.

The outlet quoted authorities at New York University saying reports of “intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents” had come in.

Students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have demanded that the university call for a cease-fire. They are are protesting what they describe as MIT’s ‘complicity in the ongoing genocide.’ AP

Police on Monday evening made a slew of arrests at the university and broke up a demonstration.

The liberal arts Barnard College also saw many students suspended including lawmaker Ilhan Omar’s daughter Isra Hirsi, as per Time Magazine.

“I really am in limbo. We don’t know when we’ll be let back in,” Hirsi told the outlet.

“I felt like I had to take a stand. “It’s not a Columbia moment. It’s a moment for everybody,” she says. “It’s important for all of us as students at prestigious universities to really shed light on what is going on.”

White House weighs in

The White House, meanwhile, issued a statement condemning “antisemitism on college campuses” – though it did not single out any university.

“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous," White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said.

“They have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America."

With inputs from agencies